Jacquelyn WAGNER – soprano
Markus BRÜCK – baritone
State Academic Choir “Latvija” – choir
Conductor Andris POGA
Programme:
Johannes BRAHMS – Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90
Johannes BRAHMS – “A German Requiem”
Wagner had been a year in the next world, but the followers of Brahms and of Wagner still lived in opposing camps, and the premiere of a Brahms symphony could still provoke something close to armed combat. The success was nonetheless great, and the rapt theme of the third movement became an object of popular culture, taken up by, among others, Sinatra, Santana and Gainsbourg. “A German Requiem” seems to belong to another world, and yet the Third Symphony sits well beside this work of genius – on the whole so finely balanced, and yet surging so high emotionally – dedicated to the arc of a human life from love to eternity.